Objective
by allihearisradiogaga
Summary: Infected!Leon AU - Leon finds it easier to keep the virus out of his thoughts if he has an objective. O'Brian and Claire discuss his future as an agent in the field, after his recent mutations. (Makes more sense if you read the other Infected AU fics I've written.)


Gunshots fired in Leon's vision, and though he knew there were only three, it seemed like there were thirty. His fractured vision allowed him to see a wider field, but it did him no favors with precision. He was too unused to seeing like this for it to be actually useful for him. He didn't have time to think too far into it, because there were more guns coming, and it was his job to stop them.

It was easier for him when he had some sort of job, some sort of objective. It focused him. He wasn't sure if that was a byproduct of the mutation or just the way he worked, but when he didn't have a specific goal, he found it much easier for his thoughts to stray from him. When that happened, other thoughts began to seep into and take over his mind.

He wasn't about to let that happen.

He ducked down, and in one quick swoop, swung his wings around, catching two of the gunmen in the chests and knocking them against a nearby wall. The third lifted his gun toward Leon, but Leon was quicker than he was. He leapt into the air, filling his large wings with pockets of air, and pushed the air beneath them out as he dove down to the gunman, knocking his gun away and tackling him to the ground before he could get a shot out.

He heard a door open in one of the buildings across the street from him. All of Leon's eyes swiveled toward the sound at once, and he could see as four or five—no, it was five. He recounted quickly, even with doubles and triples of each figure swimming in his vision before they came into focus. Their guns came to life instantly, but Leon had the advantage in the darkened town. He leapt into the air again, his wings unfurling, and caught a bullet in one as he glided across the street and landed on the small roof overhanging the patio where the gunmen stood.

He could hear them below as they hesitated about what to do, whether they should come out from safety to get a better view and shoot or to just shoot up through the roof.

Leon didn't make this kind of hesitation. His body was powered, genetically designed, for destruction, and for hunting. He powered downward, hooking one clawed foot on the edge of the roof and using his momentum to swing his whole body at one of the new gunmen, knocking him back through the front door of the building and into the saloon beyond without any of the other gunmen being able to even re-focus their guns.

Leon popped up from where he had landed, on top of the gunman, and turned back to the front of the store. He could see the other gunmen, even those he couldn't really see—he wasn't sure if it was because of their heat, or infrared, or something else, but he could see them, vague outlines of where they were. He knew his goal: take out the gunmen.

They began to fire in toward him, and he curled up, his left wing bending upward to catch most of the bullets so that they wouldn't hit the bulk of his body or, even worse, the pus-sacks that lined his spine. There was a slight pause in the fire as the men reloaded their guns—amateur mistake, firing at the same rate to reload all at once—and Leon made his move. He dashed forward on all fours, using not only his arms and legs but his powerful folded wings to push himself forward, and barreled through the front window of the saloon, knocking glass backward and sending two of the gunmen to the ground. All of them turned to begin to fire on him, but he pounced on one, knocking him back with a swipe of his claws. He turned to the other he had knocked back and grabbed the front of his shirt with his foot claw, kicking backward to send the man back into one of the roof supports.

Leon turned to the other two, and a somewhat muddled but still discernible objective stayed at the front of his mind: take them out.

He launched himself forward at one, catching a bullet in one of his wings—closer to his body than he would have really liked it to strike, and tore down on him, knocking his head against the concrete floor and sending his gun out of his hands. A bullet caught him in the shoulder, and he looked up, his eyes all concentrating at once on the last gunman, the final player. His twisted maw hung open as he rose to his full height. He took a step forward, and the man held up his gun toward Leon, not backing down.

Leon held his hands at the ready, his small claws sharp and poised to do damage, but when he saw his opponent tense up like he was ready to fire, Leon instead leapt into the air, angled his wings back, and slammed into the man foot-first, kicking him backward into the wall. He crumpled to the ground, but Leon found that it wasn't enough. He stepped on the man's chest, gripped with his clawed foot into his skin through his shirt, and dragged him down so that he was laying on his back, and descended on him, clawing once, twice, and…

His mind swirled with words and for a few moments, he wasn't able to latch onto one or the other and understand what exactly they meant.

He looked down to the man, whose face had been shredded to nothing but blinking machinery, the plastic mask over it to simulate a real person totally torn to nothingness. From somewhere off to the right and behind him, a loud horn sounded, indicating an end to the simulation. The lights in the large enclosed room came on, and Leon slowly released the dummy gunman from his claws, backing up carefully as to not seem over-aggressive even as the cloudiness slowly left his mind. He could hear the B.S.A.A. agents as they swarmed into the training facility from the outside to clean up and to wrangle him back out of the area. He stood back, his hands up to indicate that he was not about to attack, and let himself be led away, leaving the mangled robot on the ground behind him.

* * *

O'Brian turned to Claire and raised an eyebrow. "You see what I mean."

" _Yes_ ," she said, he words as pointed as her gaze down at the window in front of her. Leon was led away by a small team of fully trained—and fully equipped—B.S.A.A. agents. "I see what you mean."

He sighed, and leaned back in the chair mounted by the window overlooking the training facility. "You know, when I came out of retirement to deal with this division of the B.S.A.A., I did it at the request of your brother, and…"

"Spare me, Clive," said Claire, running her hands through her hair, pushing it back.

He sighed. "It was a mistake. Sending him to Africa. And I know—"

"I hardly think—"

"Redfield, I think you'd benefit by learning how to listen," said O'Brian, cutting her off with a glare that impressed a finality into what he was saying. Claire pulled her eyes away from Leon in order to meet his eyes. "And to understand the situation we're all under here."

"He's getting better."

"He's getting better from being worse. And we don't know when he's going to snap next."

"Snap?"

"Claire," said O'Brian, turning away from her and standing from the chair, "you understand that he _killed_ that agent."

Claire didn't have a response to that. She kept her eyes locked on O'Brian's back.

"It's the only time it's happened, but there are plenty of people who think that one time is far too many times." He turned to her, pacing. "I am inclined to be a part of that group."

Claire started, as if she were going to say something, but O'Brian held up a hand. "Look, Redfield, he's safe for now. If for nothing other than for us to study. Understand. But—" He cast a glance down at the training area. He pulled a monitor from the side of the window to angle it toward Claire. On it was a video feed of the agents cleaning up the mangled last gunman, heaving parts onto a tarp so that they could just drag it away. "This was a close one. It's just a test dummy, yeah, but how much further would he have gone?"

"What are you saying?" asked Claire, turning her eyes away from the cleanup.

"I'm saying that—it was my mistake, sending him and Harper to clean up that mess with Belikova. Hell, if I'd known it was her, I wouldn't have sent him at all." He sighed again. "I know that was a mistake, but since then, since the mutations, he's been… unstable." He paced back to his chair, and took a seat, facing Claire. "I'm taking him off of active duty. There's no way I can put him out there. Not with our agents. It's just not safe anymo—it's not safe."

"Agent Harper wouldn't think—"

"Agent Harper is of no consequence here," said O'Brian. "Take one look at her and you can see the effects of Project Retribution."

"That's unfair to Leon, and that's unfair to her."

"I don't care what's fair," said O'Brian, his eyebrows coming together for the first time, the wrinkles in his forehead accentuating his seriousness. "I care about keeping people alive. I care about keeping Agent Harper alive. I care about keeping _your brother_ alive. Hell, I even care about keeping Nivans and Kennedy alive!"

"But you'll treat him like a monster."

"I'll do what has to be done until we know what the full extent of what's going on inside his head." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "We've never had to psycho-evaluate a B.O.W. before."

"Yeah," said Claire, standing from her spot. The chair behind her spun a slow half-circle before coming to a rest. "I'm sure."

"Redfield…"

"Look," said Claire, "I know that you're in a position that doesn't give you many options. But before you go on to 'psycho-evaluate a B.O.W.,' remember…" She trailed off, pausing for a moment. "Remember that he is someone who _can_ be evaluated. He knows what's going on, and he's _keenly aware_ of all of this bullshit you're talking about his mental and physical state." She released her hands, which she hadn't realized had formed into fists at her sides. "He knows he's a monster," she said. She pointed to the monitor O'Brian had referenced earlier. It was replaying the footage of Leon tearing at the last gunman decoy. It was clear to see that at the height of his mania, he had stopped. He had stopped and seen what he had been doing and backed off before the lights came on and the simulation ended.

"What if that had been a person?"

"It wasn't," said Claire.

"Redfield."

Claire looked to the man, who was standing again, as well. He stepped toward her and took her hand. His hands were cold and clammy.

"You're here to help. You care for Leon. But he's not safe." He dropped her hand, and she pulled it back with a speed that did not go unnoticed. "I just want to ensure the safety of… of everyone."

"Understood," said Claire, her mouth a flat line. O'Brian raised an eyebrow, but she turned from him. "Clive, I have to go. Check in with your 'B.O.W.'" She put her hand up in a half-wave, not turning back to him. "Thanks."

The doors closed behind her with a faint _wssh_. O'Brian turned back to the monitor, watching what had happened on the screens again, in slightly faster motion than it had gone before. He sighed and turned the monitor off as Leon ripped his claws across the mechanical face of the decoy.


End file.
